What measures have you taken to prepare yourself for the best Windows 8 transition experience possible?
Have you purchased a touch screen capable monitor?
Have you bought the latest motherboard,processor,memory and Solid state hard drive?

Yeah, me either.
Maybe I will wait a couple years for the computers to start shipping with windows 8 already on them. Not the ones that say “Windows 8 ready” or “windows 8 upgrade for free”. The machines built for Windows 8.

Typically when the new operating systems come out, we find later that current hardware is less than able to run the operating systems and soon after come new and improved hardware. Most often is ram/memory. but the inevitable is processor. with a new CPU it’s usually a good idea to get a new motherboard also. or you will be left behind.

The part you have to prepare for is, what is available now, at it’s max is usually just barely above minimum requirements of what ever software or operating system that has just been released. Like say, ddr2 memory was the highest we had when Vista came out. That memory capped out in it’s time at 2 gigs per stick. many motherboards have only two slots. Wouldn’t you know it, 4 gigs memory is optimal for windows 7. That’s not how it was announced but that’s what we have come to learn on our own. This will be the same case with windows 8. Now with Windows 7 out we have DDR3. Which has a cap of what I think is 8 gigs per stick. Count on DDR5 becoming the common with in the next year, and the first bloat pack (service pack) coming out and everyone realizing that new optimal for windows 8 will be crazy high like 8 gigs. best performance 32 gigs.

So hold out on your upgrade to any new operating system for a few months. let the new hardware come out. Let the first few updates come out. Let the internet swell with complaints. Don’t buy parts until you see the crying stop. Prices should level out to a fair cost. If you buy any parts or computers now, you are basically buying off the junk that the stores are trying to get off their shelves. They too know how it works. Every single time.

Fear Monger
Basically, based on past experience, if you are running DDR2 or older, you will be left behind. That mouse of yours is antiquated, and that video card you have that is the top of the line, is now ….. just cute. That 250 gig spinning hard drive will be pointless. Of course because the numbers are higher on everything, we will bloat out our videos and music. Count on songs becoming 1 gig minimum. So that one TB hard drive you have in the external case, will be antiquated, 50 TB hard drives coming with in the next two years. Easily. (not easy task, but is a must). Well at this rate . What does this mean? It means your 250 gigs a month cap from Comcast, will easily be reached. Your 2 gig cap from at&t is less than laughable now. Just wait until ALL of your software is apps based and you begin to agree that cloud storage is the only logical option. That 250 gigs a month will be less than a week to break.

This of course is one hundred percent plausible fiction.

but as always. Software should always excel hardware. That’s how we evolve. If not for something to push the hardware to be better, faster, stronger, we would be complacent. We would not innovate. When we have greater speeds and storage, we can then come up with ideas that seemed farfetched and impossible.

I admit that I am currently satisfied with Windows 7, fearful of what Windows 8 could mean, and skeptical of any positive claims we see in the next 5 months of Windows 8.